Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Neil Quigley marched off into the sunset at 5.49pm on Friday. Late enough for the news to miss the TV 6pm bulletin.  It’s an old PR trick. Leaving the shock value to dissipate over the weekend before the start of play on Monday.  It was evidence to me that successive governments and the Reserve Bank have failed to respect each other or realise that even though they are independent their actions combine and affect all of New Zealand  In the Covid years the Reserve bank reacted and made money essentially free.  But the Labour government wanted to be seen to be doing something, so they started overspending and throwing borrowed money away.  The result was a superheated economy that crashed spectacularly and spectacularly quickly  So, then the Reserve Bank made money expensive again to attack the overheating.  But the new Government, this time National, again wanted to be seen to be doing something so they cancelled government expenditure throwing us into a deeper economic funk